Yayyy! Some old and some younger/new kayaking friends trusted me to lead a Skin On Frame builder’s class, so here we go! The participants will comment the heck out of this blog, I am sure of it! A bit oldscool yes, but at least we get to own the content. Unfortunately I don’t have a video streaming service setup so Youtube will have to do for now for video clips.
Locale
So, ‘nuf ranting. ÅMK, early March, cold. Don’t rush it. We are city slickers. More room at the boat club in May when the ships and small boats are launched.
Sourcing wood
On one of my previous builds I happened to meet William who is an arborist and also has a small mill. Must be fresh and locally cut Ash and White Oak for kayak bending wood. This was sawn while I was watching 🙂 The boys sure make the logs look easy to handle don’t they?
After loading up the hundreds of kilos of moist wood in my car, I went ahead and wrapped all planks in plastic at the boat club. They will only be stored for a short while and ripped as needed while we are building our kayaks.
Sourcing PU
I have tried several different PU compounds for various kayaks. Only happy with Skinboat’s stuff so far. Found a chemist and material’s expert who pointed me to a manufacturer with an improved formula for UV and controllable viscosity. Non-toxic. The only caveat is I need to buy large batches. All Polyurethane for kayaks has a “best before” date. Will resell and ship to builders across Europe to finance the large batches, since there will probably always be a few kayak’s worth left over in the barrel.
Cloth
Marcin Bober in Poland supplies our cloth. You can contact him via his FB page.
Tools, bits and pieces
Went on many shopping sprees across town to find the right tools and materials.
